Under certain circumstances it is necessary or desirable to provide breathing assistance to a patient under respiratory distress. For example, breathing assistance is often a necessary therapy to treat respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in infants, which can also be referred to as neonatal respiratory distress syndrome. The breathing assistance provided is often in the form of providing a flow of breathing gas at a positive pressure, or a pressure somewhat greater than atmospheric pressure. Such treatments may be referred to in general as positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy. Often, the positive pressure is provided by a continuous flow of breathing gas, which is referred to as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide breathing assistance systems and methods and/or systems and methods for providing positive airway pressure therapy to a patient, such as an infant patient, which will go at least some way towards addressing the foregoing problems or which will at least provide the industry/public with a useful choice.
Further aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the ensuing description which is given by way of example only.